64 percent of online gamers are women

I've chatted it up quite a bit on TechRepublic about women in gaming, and so every time I see a news story that relates to this topic, I have to give it a little love. Take a look at this recent news article: "Women outnumber men in online games, survey finds."

From the title alone, are you finding this hard to believe? Here are some tasty little morsels of the article for easier digestion:

"Of the 117 million active gamers in the U.S., 56 percent play games online. Sixty-four percent of those online gamers are female, according to results of the survey, released by Nielsen Entertainment."

Who exactly is an active gamer? "The survey defined active gamers as those who are 13 years or older, own at least one game device, and play at least one hour of video games a week... Nielsen surveyed 2,200 active gamers online in July."

What types of games devices did the study examine? "Game devices include game consoles, personal computers, and handhelds." The beloved PC was listed as the platform of choice. "Sixty-four percent of those who regularly played video games, played on PC-based systems."

Still surprised? I think with all of the media that women in gaming has received over the past several months, quite a few females who previously didn't play games have raised their eyebrows and started bending their opposable thumbs.